When Kabul's only female camerawoman is given a career opportunity by the last man she expected, she finds herself falling for someone in a city that is about to fall itself. A funny, warm and deeply political romance from one of the most exciting voices in world cinema.
A laudable, attention-grabbing feature that coasts along breezily on sheer attitude and charm.
No Good Men 2026
The Afghan filmmaker Shahrbanoo Sadat is a warm and approachable presence as writer, director and star of No Good Men – a tale of Afghanistan’s women in 2021 as they are about to be surrendered to the Taliban with the withdrawal of US troops.
Sadat is Naru, a woman effectively separated from her creep of a husband, burdened with sole charge of their son as well as being the only earner. She is a camera operator at a Kabul TV station; she has liberated friends with western attitudes – one cheerfully gives her a vibrator as a present.
When ordered to do fatuous vox-pops about Valentine’s Day, Naru does a great job; women open up to her about the awfulness of their men in a way they never would to a man. Her colleague Quodrat (Anwar Hashimi), once icily misogynist, is impressed by her professional abilities, and develops a new, extra-marital admiration for Naru..
Shrewd and pointed… This is a contemporary romance and the kind of film that tells you things about Afghanistan that aren’t covered in our own nightly news.
– Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian